Writers often have too little time for reading, even if a tempting new book crosses their desk.

That has been my curse lately, despite receiving a new novel from a local author I’ve known for many years.

Marianne Langner Zeitlin’s Motherless Child (Zephyr Press, $17) combines an intimate family history and an exploration of the twisted byways of music management – a world that Zeitlin knows firsthand as a former orchestra manager and staffer at a major concert management firm.

The novel’s protagonist, Elizabeth Guaragna, sets out to investigate the life of concert managerAlfred Rossiter. She believes that he became her late mother’s lover and ruined both her family life and her father’s career as concert pianist. Yet after encountering Rossiter’s biographer, she finds her family drama taking unexpected turns.

In a Sept. 30 story about turmoil at the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, I mentioned that some of this season’s Phiharmonics Series programs will be changed. Nine pieces requiring extra musicians, more rehearsal time or high music rental costs have been dropped in favor of more “cost-effective” selections, because the RPO is facing a high deficit.

Space prevented me from listing these substitutions, or my reactions to them. But I know they’ll interest RPO patrons, so here are the changes announced last month:

Jeff Spevak has shaken the hand of Johnny Cash. He has done a shot of whiskey with Bo Diddley. He sang with Tina Turner for 12 seconds. His Top 10 albums of all time include 17 by Bob Dylan. He likes dogs, the Cleveland Indians and wine. His favorite books are Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He likes to eat Chilean sea bass.

Catherine Roberts: Lead Local Editor/Life, is the mother of two teenage boys. She's so used to being overbooked that when there's a spare moment, she feels the needs to know what's going on around town to fill the gap. Favorite things in Rochester include the museums, Red Wings games and concerts. But most of the time, you'll find her and her husband, Chad (the Democrat and Chronicle's overnight editor), at a bowling alley, the sidelines of a ball field or walking a dog in their Irondequoit neighborhood or Durand-Eastman Park. If you have any ideas, please email at cathyr@DemocratandChronicle.com

Diana Louise Carter was born at Rochester General Hospital the same year it opened and reared in Bristol, Ontario County. After college and grad school, her first reporting job was on a small newspaper in Western Massachusetts. She returned to Rochester in late 1987 to work for the Democrat and Chronicle. Carter covers agriculture and banking. She lives in the Upper Monroe neighborhood of Rochester with her husband and three children.

Anna Reguero, a former Democrat and Chronicle music critic, a clarinetist and a graduate of Eastman School of Music, is a doctoral student in musicology at State University of New York at Stony Brook.